My name is Rosa. I am 41 years old, black, fat, and depressed. It is the fact that I am depressed which prompts me to ask for the words which describes what has happened to me?

Before you answer, let me give you a little history. Five years ago I was a second year medical student. The fact that I weighed over 300 pounds made it easy for the University's staff and faculty to be cruel to me. And they were!!! But, their cruelty was nothing new. I did my undergraduate work at the same University and received dual degrees in both Sociology and Biology.

The difference was my home situation. My original home burned down and myself along with my two sons had to move. During semester break I purchased a home in one of Detroit's Historic Districts. The house had five bathrooms which I wanted all redecorated. I hired a Master Plumber to do the work.

It turns out that this "Master" was not a master plumber -- he was a journeyman and worst his employees were untrained to the point of not being able to read simple plumbing plans. They wrecked my house. They butchered my floor joists so badly the house was threatened to fall down. But the worst situation was the lack of fresh water. The plumbers did not properly vent the pipes and in addition the sewer was backing up into my basement.

While I was doing my undergrad work, I used my home as a place to rejuvenate after a hard particularly hard day. A hard day could be defined as being sexually harassed by a professor and laughed at by the authorities, or being threatened to be dismissed from the University for plagerism because, "A person like me could not write like that."

Rejuvenation could be defined as interacting with my kids, shooting a few games of pool in our basement, then taking a hot shower. The plumbers took from me all my methods of coping with the abuses indured at school. They took the companionship of my kids and my home.

I would not allow my kids to move into the house. I had to move in because the new semester was starting and I needed room to organize my study materials (2 computers, 3 printers, 2 fax machines, 4 bookshelves and hundreds of books). All my money was tied up in the house, but I had a little left for buying bottled water.

Several times, usually just before an exam, I would slip up and wash my face, brush my teeth, or wash my hands with the contaminated water. I would promptly get sick, but if I could stand up at all I'd still go to school. While there I suddenly starting to hear to rude remarks of my classmates and the faculty. Before I was shielded from these remarks, but all of a sudden they started to hit my heart like missiles.

To add to this humiliation, my previously clean body, hair and clothes was now soiled from lack of a shower and a washing machine. The scent of the sewer wreaked over me like the perfumery stink of cigar smoke.

The conditions I was living under made true all the stereotypes given to fat people. I was now lazy, stupid, and nasty. I believed it too. It was this belief that made it possible for me to accept abuse I normally would have not even acknowledged.

In 1996, I decided to leave medical school. I was beaten to a dark space outside my own body. After 4 incarcerations in various mental hospitals, 15 electric shock treatments, and a bounty of medications, I still don't where is Rosa.

I start here my search for her. I need to know the words that applies to what has happened to me. Please do not respond if you are going to tell me medical school is very difficult. As this was not the case. However, this is the assumption everybody (including my doctors and lawyers) has made.

The truth is, I was a very strong women who was a single parent teen mother of two boys. I dropped on school in the tenth grade to raise my sons. Even though I passed my GED, I was years behind the other students during my freshman days. First I quickly caught up with them, then it were my test scores blowing out the curve. In all this time, my kids and I never went dirty or hungry. Achieving this was hard. The subject matter at medical school was like small pieces of heaven to me. To most of us, there is nothing hard about being in heaven.

Please write to me if you have the required words. If you do not have these words, constructive e-mails will gratefully be accepted.

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